Disclaimer: I do not own TGQ. It belongs to Amagi Seimaru and Satou Fumiya.
A/N: Last one! (cos i'm too lazy, and work is catching up. and i want to work on Romeo and Juliet.) There'll be an epilogue, i'm posting after this.
Chapter 2
Ryu pushed his way through the chattering crowd, ignoring the whispers, the giggles, the points and nudges. He'd become used to them by now.
Ryu Amakusa (or Amakusa Ryu as he liked to think) had finished top of the honour roll. Again. Just like last year, and the year before. And the youngest person ever to do so, at thirteen amongst eighteen-year-olds. The youngest high-school senior. It bothered him.
Proceeding quickly, he had found himself skipping grades every year. At thirteen, he was graduating from high school with top honours. Teachers thought he was brilliant genius; others, just a plain weirdo with blue hair (whatever possessed the gods to give him blue hair!), teacher's pet. Why should he be bothered? Certainly not by what his classmates thought of him.
Whatever was he going to do next? College? He couldn't possibly start work at the age of… (according to his calculations, college would take about 4 years…) seventeen! Or could he? Would the college staff even take him in?
Perhaps Oji-san would take him back to Japan. The 'two or three years' were almost up.
Would he ever return to Japan?
WHACK. Laughter filled the air as Ryu, immersed in his thoughts, slammed face-first into the wall. And a bright, gaudy (HOT PINK!) poster.
COME TO THE FAREWELL DANCE.
Ryu wasn't planning on going. He had never gone. But now…graduating from school, people EXPECTED him to go. He wasn't going to go.
Giggling girls, thinking that going out with a thirteen-year-old kid was cute, had asked him out, only to be turned down (they were quite disappointed, which was queer. Who would really want to go out with a blue-haired freak?). No loss, except perhaps to their ego. Certainly not to Ryu's. He never expected anyone to ask him, much less go.
He went home.
"Okaerinasai, Ryu-sama."
"Yurie-san."
"Hai?"
"There's no need to prepare dinner for me tonight. I'm not hungry."
"By the way, Ryu-sama, there's a letter for you. And I heard about the honour roll. Congratulations." Ryu paused, bedroom door half open.
"Mmm."
Ryu collapsed on the bed, ripping open the top of the envelope.
MASSACHUSSETS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (MIT)
DEAR RYU AMAKUSA:
Every year the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hands out a certain limited number of scholarships to students who have shown a particular interest or great talent in science and technology.
Thus, we are pleased to inform you that we have set aside a place for you in our institute. Your record has been exemplary, nothing short of genius.
We hope that you will accept this scholarship, and reply to this letter by the fifteenth of May. Thank you.
Superintendent
William Hargreaves
Ryu turned off the light, and turned, facedown in his pillow. Great way to add to his insomnia, MIT. At this point he could barely sleep three hours per night, and now right beside his slowly increasing desire to return to nihon was this brilliant letter. Perfect. At this rate, he wouldn't be getting any sleep at all.
Nihon…He missed speaking nihongou. Although he spoke it regularly and kept to Japanese customs with Yurie-san, however it just wasn't the same as being in Japan.
It had been two and a half years since he last intermixed Japanese words with his English.
And he had begun to do so again.
To go or not to go…Great. Now he was thinking Hamlet. Only after the Literature paper was over, of course.
MIT…nihon…MIT…nihon…MIT…nihon…MITnihonMITnihonMITNIHON…Had he gone insane?
Ryu flipped around to stare at the ceiling. When he had first arrived, he had placed a world map on the ceiling. A small glow-in-the-dark star was pasted right where Tokyo was. With the light off, all he could see was the star. He watched, as the star gradually went from being brightly illuminated, to a faint glow superimposed on the ceiling. Like his dreams of returning.
MIT or nihon?If he went to MIT, he would please oji-san. But if he declined, perhaps oji-san would think he had failed and bring him back.
Fat chance of that ever happening. By this time he'd probably already know of the invitation, knowing Yurie-san.
Then the phone downstairs rang, and he could hear faint strains of Yurie-san's conversation. "Hai, Kelbros-san."
Ah, oji-san just made the decision for him.
"Heard somebody got into the MIT, huh."
"A certain honourable person."
"On a roll, don't'cha think?"
The crowd of guys at the locker room shouldered Ryu aside, making sure they were talking just loud enough for him to hear.
Being slight of weight and absolutely no match for the burly rugby team members, Ryu stumbled to one side, caught himself at the lockers and examined the ugly bruise on his arm. Nothing too much to worry about.
He helped a little girl on the way home.
Not like it was something he usually did.
But she spoke Japanese, which attracted him to her instantly.
Thank God he managed to find her house, and that she actually knew her address.
"Arigatou, Ryu-kun!"Her excited, high-pitched voice intermixed with her mother's profuse thanks in Japanese still filled his mind. The beauty of nihongou.
Helped solve another case today…
His third one, wasn't it?
Relatively simple, or so it appeared to him.
He had absolutely no clue why the keisatsu found it tough to figure; but he somewhat enjoyed what he did.
Stopping by the station to converse with the policemen, picking out fallacies in alibis, picking apart the human behaviour. Was that a strange hobby for a thirteen-almost-fourteen-year-old?
He should really consider a career as a detective, or a policeman. Perhaps then it wouldn't look so queer. He could've sworn people were giving him strange looks that day.
MASSACHUSSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (MIT)
DEAR RYU AMAKUSA:
We are sorry to hear that you have declined our offer of a scholarship to our institute. Should you change your mind, the offer is still available.
Thank you
Superintendent
William Hargreaves.
"Ryu-sama! We're going to be late! Hurry up!"
Ryu had just finished taking down the map. Jumping down from the stool, he rolled it up and stuffed it in his suitcase. He padded downstairs in his bare socks, and pulled on his sneakers once outside with practiced ease. He hefted the suitcase in one hand, and in the other the letter from MIT, which had just arrived. As Yurie-san attempted to hail a taxi (for once she had forgotten to call one) he crushed the letter into a ball and threw it into the bin. He would leave everything behind.
Leave everything behind, and start afresh in Japan. Oji-san said he had plans for Ryu-kun in Japan. Not Ryu Amakusa, but Amakusa Ryu.
He was going home.
A/N: YAY IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE! it may not seem like much but i spent most of my holidays doing this! Love muchly to all guys who reviewed, (esp lorraine and natsu!)